DOUBLE UPDATE- NEW DATA ANALYSIS AT BOTTOM- SEITZ SHOULD SEND US HIS DATA!

Can you live-blog a multi-week thing? And is it really a LiveBlog! if only edited 1-2 times per week? Can you start a LiveBlog! with events that happened several days ago? Well, I’m doing it. And no one can stop me. Ha ha ha ha ha. At 3Bulls, we change the rules to suit our needs.

Anyway, here we go…..

2/21/08

I was recently informed by wife that I have to attend this formal event 3/15/08. I’ll have to wear a tux.
The last time I wore a tux, I got married (3 years ago). I have not worn the tux since.

But I still own the tux. Financial genius that I am, I decided to buy the tux instead of rent it, so I wouldn’t have to waste money renting every time I needed a tux in the future.

The plan has worked out rather poorly. Making reasonable NPV-type assumptions to account for the time value of the extra money spent in 2005 to own vs. rent, and accounting for the decline of the dollar since 2005, I will have to wear the tux about 30 times per year for the next 65 years for that decision to pay off.
But that is in the past and hence a sunk cost. More potentially damaging is the psychological impact of not be able to wear the tux due to weight gain, as shown in the following chart:

2005 192.542 lbs (est)

Today 207.2 lbs (actual)

I probably could not wear the tux now. At 200 pounds, I could wear it, but it would hurt both pysically and psychologically. If I get to 193, I’ll be comfortable despite a weight gain of 0.478 pounds over 3 years. Let’s target 193.

The incentive value of this is great. Prior to now, I had been “trying to lose weight”, but it had been a half-ass effort at best. But there is no way I’m renting a tux and ruining my “hey, I should own this tux” idea – it’s time to go 3/4 ass and get this done.

I will have to lose approximately 14 pounds in 23 days. My weight has been extremely volatile in the past three years – not great news for my long-term health, but it does give me some hope in being able to shed the pounds.

I do like to eat, and I don’t much like exercise. So mustering the will power to get this done will be tough.

I have decided to post my progress on 3B. By doing so, I will open myself up to ridicule from the entire 3B community should I fail, thus providing extra incentive. (I am aware that I will also be riduculed by the entire 3B community if I succeed, but in that case I would feel the ridicule to be unjust so it will not bother me).

PP adds SCIENCE SHALL HELP US WITH VISUAL AIDS

DOUBLE UPDATE, EVEN BETTER- ALSO, STARTING TO LOOK NOT SO GOOD. I suggest baseline master and maybe sweatshirt jogging or Civ III on the treadmill. Or strike a deal with big oatmeal!

2/27/08 6:38 PM

Progress to date…

Target is 193 pounds by 3/15/08

Date Pounds Pounds to lose Days left Lbs lost per day Lbs to lose/day

2/21/08 207.2 14.2 23 n/a 0.62

2/22/08 207.2 14.2 22 0 0.65

2/23/08 206.0 13.0 21 0.6 0.62

2/25/08 205.4 12.4 19 0.45 0.65

2/27/08 204 11 17 0.53 0.65

Progress is in the right direction. However, since each pound is harder to lose than the last, I should be distressed that I have only lost 0.53 pounds per day so far, and I need to lose 0.65 pounds per day from now on to hit my goal.

My main vehicle for weight loss has been a three-pronged attack:

Reduction of Starbucks beverage consumption (has been a financial windfall as well)

Replacement of Coke with Diet Coke

Verbally assault self upon any contemplation of excess snacking

To date, I have not resorted to the dreaded exercise, but it appears I may have to in order to meet the target.

The saddest experience is that I’m thinking, “Hey, 204, I’m looking pretty good here, I’m feeling better, this is great.” A decade ago I would have declared that anyone who allows his weight to get as high as 204 is a disgusting pig who should be shot.

UPDATE 2/27/08 9:27 PM

I arrived home to discover that while I stayed late at the office “working” (posting the above), my daughter had some sort of “birthday party” or something. I missed the whole thing – the family wasn’t happy with me, but I think of all the calories I would have consumed at said party had I attended – I’d be up to 210 by now. Another winning decision by RR.

Huge TY to PP for the visual aids. I now am even more depressed. You know, I feel like Ron Paul running for the GOP nomination. He started at about 0% in the polls, so gaining 0.6% per month is great, but he just never had enough months. If the primary season were 4 years long (maybe next time), he’d be fine. Similary, I’m in big danger of running out of days.

Since PP is using some kind of fancy science-y computer program to make these graphs, I’d like him to use a non-linear regression (non-linear since weight loss rate in pounds per day should decrease over time) to project where I will be on 3/15/08. Suggestion for exponential decay type model: If my lowest weight ever (at current height) was 165 pounds, we might say, for example, that at 207.2 I started with 42.2 “loseable” pounds, and was able to lose 7.1% of them in 6 days for 3.2 pounds lost – I now have 39 loseable pounds, and in the next 6 days I can only lose 7.1% of them, or 2.8 pounds, and so on. Right now, using exponential decay, (1-7.1%)^(1/6) = 98.8% —> I’m losing 1.2% of my “losable pounds” per day. One might say this is flawed since it implies that given infinite effort, I can never get to 165 again – but believe me, it’s true! PP is an analytic genius, so I trust he can make his program thing do this.

UC’s suggestion of targeting 200 lbs is reasonable, but since I tend to come up short on my goals, I need to set them a little more aggressively. I also love his story of gaining 14 pounds in a sitting, I’ve been there.

Concerning Richard Goers’ letter, “God loves all” (Forum, Feb. 19), Sen. Chris Buttars’ opposition to Salt Lake City’s domestic partnership registry is not hateful toward homosexuals, nor does it indicate that he is out of tune with Mormon beliefs.
Yes, God loves everyone and has given us free agency, but he also counsels us to never condone or accept evil behavior. Homosexual acts degrade the individual, the family and society. Children are entitled to have both a father and mother. Salt Lake City should not support those who act on homosexual feelings by facilitating benefits for partners living together. Not having such benefits does not erode someone’s freedom to choose homosexuality.
Mormons do not hate homosexuals. We invite them to our Sunday meetings and pray that by showing them our love they will feel of God’s love for them and understand that living God’s laws of marriage will bring them lasting peace and happiness in this life and the next. Many Mormons oppose any government action that directly or indirectly supports homosexuality. We are not being bigoted and hateful – we are helping keep society’s morals on the track of prosperity and virtue.

Z. M.
Logan

Will someone not please provide me with a 3B header and our new slogan, “helping keep society’s morals on the track of prosperity and virtue, COBAGS!”?????

Either a newish battle rap, a deeply cynical rant on the idiocy of humanity as evidenced by internet using specimens, a poem, a funny story about UC his Pitchfork nemesis as told by UC, a Blue Girl smear video, or a depressing rumination of the state of yet another punctured idealization of how life appeared to work. Up to you, because I have had it!

9:05 PM Stepped outside, found moon. It was in the sky. Lots of clouds too.

9:14 Children/wife all asleep or nearly so. Must decide whether to wake them up for eclipse or let them sleep. Efforts to fire up family for previous eclipses have been met with stinging rebuke, so on this fairly cloudy night, probably best to not push too hard.

10:16 Wife watching recently-dvr-ed Supernanny (9pm Wed, ABC). Wilson of Wilson-Phillips is celebrity family this week. Attempt to show wife eclipse. Takes much prodding to get her off couch.

10:18 Fight with wife over whether to wake the kids. RR loses.

10:21 Eclipse is total! Moon completely non-visible. Amazing. The stupid idiots in the mainstream media said the moon wouldn’t be totally covered and they were proven wrong again. Ha ha ha ha ha.

10:22 Damn, turns out it just a giant-ass cloud covering the moon. Guess it never disappeared completely after all. Sorry mainstream media – my bad for doubting you!

10:24 Resolve to tell kids eclipse was awesome, they totally missed out, and it’s 2 years till the next one. Also resolve to tell kids story of how Columbus leveraged an eclipse and his civilization’s higher level of rational thought and science to snooker mystical Indians out of fud (aka food). http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20061007/mathtrek.asp

10:30 It would be eerily dark outside right now were it not for my laptop. And Supernanny.

10:34 Looks like peak coverage. The entire left 7/8 of the moon is shadowy/orangy. You can see the whole moon, but only the 1/8 on the right is bright. If you didn’t know what was going on and just looked up quick, you’d at first think it was a farily new crescent moon. But only for a second.

10:41 Very painful mosquito bite

10:45 The moon started to come back, then got shadowed again. WTF?

10:47 Mosquitos bite frequency and intensity increasing.

10:50 Eclipse only scheduled for one hour, but still going strong 50 minutes in. Maybe we’ll get more than we bargained for.

10:57 Wife steps outside, says wow, eclipse is almost total. And she’s right. Somehow even less than 1/8 of the moon is visible. Yet the eclipse is supposed to be almost over. WTF??

11:00 I misread the article where is says the eclipse would last an hour. The total eclipse phase would last an hour, not the entire eclipse. So we’re still going strong.

11:02 The Earth’s rotation is killing me, as the moon is disappearing behind a plam tree leaf. Further viewing will require me to move my chair. Damn.

11:05 Let’s call it an eclipse. I’m not moving my chair, or standing up. And clouds are rolling in, and mosquitos are gettin’ me, plus it’s dropped down to nearly 66 degrees. I think we can safely assume that the moon will return.

Well, I know this wasn’t the best liveblogging effort ever, but I achieved my goal of being the first ever to liveblog an eclipse, plus this will help me meet my minimum posting requirements to remain a member in good standing of 3B.

Good night all, and please remember to vote for Ron Paul. rEVOLution 08!!

I AM SPEECHLESS AT THE SHABBY AND RIDICULONI TREATMENT OF THE DEEPLY IMPORTANT FASHION BLOGGER OF THE NEW YORK TIMES! IN SOLIDARITY, 3B HAS DISINVITED ARMANI FROM OUR FALL 2017 COLLECTION. LET HIM EAT CAKE! EVEN MORE INCISIVE IN COMMENTARY ABOUT THESE SHOCKING EVENTS ARE THE MASSIVELY AMAZING AN FASHION CONSCIOUS COMMENTERS AT SAID BLOG.

I think 3B shall emulate them.

I will start.

Pretend you cannot even read what I am writing because I am using invisible ink and remove yourself to the shabby Hamptons, backwater for decrepit local trash. You have not even received this edition of the Times. This post is printed in a special edition of the Times that behaves as if you don’t exist, but everything we cover is of deep importance. Your yacht does not even have a helicopter. Also, Balenciaga, b*****!

I have an ongoing discussion with mikey about music economics, (NOT AN ARGUMENT DAMMIT!) mostly on FaceHell but that must wait, let it be, let it be… Also, there is much to be said and shouted about TurdWaffle and his misbegotten imaginary Presidential ambitions, not to mention the depredations he is inflicting upon Wisconsin, a […]